The BJP won the prestigious fight for the Milkipur Assembly seat on Saturday, with its candidate Chandrabhanu Paswan trumping his Samajwadi Party (SP) rival Ajit Prasad by 61,710 votes. The BJP had staked it all for the bypoll, which falls under the Faizabad Lok Sabha constituency. In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the party had lost from Faizabad, in a loss of face as the Lok Sabha constituency includes Ayodhya. The SP candidate who won from Faizabad, Awadhesh Prasad, had vacated the Milkipur seat, necessitating the bypoll. Prasad's son Ajit was the SP candidate for the bypoll. “We took the welfare programmes and schemes of the double engine BJP government to the people of Milkipur and they supported us. We will not leave any stone unturned for the development of Milkipur,” Paswan said, following his victory, crediting it to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the good governance of the BJP-led Centre and state governments. The BJP’s victory indicates that while Mulims and Yadavs may have stayed with the SP candidate, the Pasi community – to which both Ajit and Paswan belong – and other Scheduled Caste (SC) communities rallied behind the BJP. This is what changed from the Lok Sabha polls, when the Pasi community was seen to have played a key role in the SP’s victory. Paswan’s efforts were also likely aided by the BJP’s core voter base of Brahmins (around 65,000) and Thakurs (around 18,000). The SC-reserved Milkipur seat has around 1.25 lakh SC voters of which around 70,000 belong to the Pasi community. Muslims and Yadavs make up around 55,000 and 32,000 voters respectively. Paswan’s win is also a blow to Akhilesh’s PDA (Pichhda, Dalit, Alpsankhyak) pitch. Other Backward Classes (OBCs) like the Chaurasiya, Vishwakarma, Maurya and Chauhans, who number around 30,000, appear to have extended support to the BJP. Ajit’s road to the bypoll was contentious with a section of people from almost all communities – barring Muslims and Yadavs – believing that the SP nominating any other candidate would have made the fight closer while another section of the electorate thought the Faizabad MP had become “arrogant” after his Lok Sabha win and was “inaccessible” like his sons. Residents of several Pasi-dominated villages were also unhappy over Ajit’s candidature and claimed Awadhesh had not thought about those working with him while nominating his son as the candidate, and Paswan deserved a chance as he belonged to the same community. SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, who had got a big boost from the Faizabad win in the Lok Sabha polls, part of the party's impressive performance in the general elections in the state, on Saturday said that the Milkhipur victory was a result of “misuse of election machinery”. “This is a false victory, which the BJP will never be able to celebrate. (or to meet its) own eyes in the mirror. Their guilt and the fear of future defeat will keep them awake," he posted on X. Akhilesh also warned “erring officials”, saying their “electoral fraud would be punished sooner or later”. In an all-out bid to win the Milkipur seat, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had himself taken charge of the campaign. The CM visited the constituency more than eight times in the run-up to the polls and, in order to balance caste equations and election strategy, deputed nine ministers and 40 MLAs for the campaign. “This victory is a symbol of the unwavering faith of the common people in the public welfare policies of the 'Double Engine BJP Government' led by the Honorable Prime Minister Shri @narendramodi ji and dedicated @UPGovt to service, security and good governance,” the CM said in a post on X. The SP top leadership too had pitched in, even when leaving a big part of the campaign to the Faizabad MP and his sons – Ajit and Amit. Mainpuri MP Dimple Yadav held a roadshow last week while Akhilesh addressed a rally on February 3, the last day of campaigning.
